Guest Blog!: Why Harry Potter & The Goblet of Fire Helped Me Grow Up

For the past week I've been in Orlando, visiting the Wizarding World of Harry Potter (and other theme parks). To celebrate that joyous event (as well as my birthday), my plan was to have a week of Harry Potter-ness on this here blog, but that plan was THWARTED by the evil, evil hotel I was staying at because they DID NOT HAVE WIFI. It was weird. I was confused. But I could not change it.

But now I'm sitting in the Orlando airport (BTW, the call letters for the airport are MCO, so in my mind I call it the Mickey & Co. airport.) and THEY have WIFI for FREE DOLLERS. I like that. 

So, at long last, here is the lovely guest blog written by the lovely Farrah from I Eat Words. After you visit her blog,  you should follow her on Twitter, for she is awesome. 

LET THE GUEST BLOG COMMENCE!

Many people listen to a song and are brought back to a certain point in their life, whether it was a bad breakup or an enjoyable vacation. For me, I grew up with Harry Potter. When I re-read each book, I’m taken back to a certain time in my life. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire means more to me than just 734 pieces of paper. When I read it, I’m 12 years old again. 12 is a good age, because it’s before you start worrying about your looks, what people think, or how cool you’ll be in middle school. And that’s the thing. The fourth book address issues and problems of growing up inside the world of the three main characters. Aside from the action and adventure, J.K. Rowling takes the tension and angst of being 14 and presents it perfectly.

A lot of things happened when I was 12. I lost my best friend to the popular crowd months after we’d both read and gone to the midnight release of the 4th book. I was still a nerdy bookworm, swimming in a transition stage between middle school and elementary school. I saw girls attempt to wear makeup, talk about boys, and even cry over them. I didn’t understand what was happening, and because I’m known to re-read my favorite books, I lost myself in Harry’s world again. That’s when I first started to realize that my world and Harry’s weren’t different at all. I mean, sure I was still hopelessly awaiting my owl, letter, broomstick, but the issues of fights, friendships, and dating and clearly presented in this book because that’s usually the age when things begin to change. And I was noticing them. I had fights with my friends just Harry and Ron fought. I stammered around guys my own age just like Harry did when he spoke to Cho Chang.

The thing is, I knew it wasn’t going to get easier. J.K. Rowling put these small tensions in the book for a reason—they’re relatable to even us muggles. So even though I didn’t find a wide open door of clarity, the fourth book helped me realized people change, grow, and even act different because, *hello*, those wonderful things called hormones are kicking in. And I may have not understand even little thing about teen angst when I was 12, but I was glad I wasn’t the only one going through it. In fact, I knew that somehow, even though all the broken hearts, angry words, and fragile friendships, I’d be okay. And I am. So even though 12 came with a lot of good and a lot of bad, I’m still sucked back into those memories when I read The Goblet of Fire. There isn’t any book or song in the world that can define who you are, but it sure helps when you can get lost in both.

By Farrah

Blog: www.ieatwords.net

Review: Falling in Love with English Boys

Title: Falling in Love with English Boys
Author: Melissa Jensen
Publisher: Speak (Penguin Group)
Pages: 272
Pub Date: December 23, 2010
Format: ARC (pilfered from ARC shelf at work...shhhh!)

Sixteen-year-old Catherine Vernon has been stranded in London for the summer—no friends, no ex-boyfriend Adam the Scum (good riddance!), and absolutely nothing to do but blog about her misery to her friends back home. Desperate for something—anything—to do in London while her (s)mother’s off researching boring historical things, Cat starts reading the 1815 diary of Katherine Percival her mom gives her—and finds the similarities between their lives to be oddly close. But where Katherine has the whirls of the society, the parties and the gossip over who is engaged to who, Cat’s only got some really excellent English chocolate. Then she meets William Percival—the uber-hot descendant of Katherine—and things start looking up . . .--Goodreads


When I picked this book up, I figured it'd be a mindless, formulaic, chick-lit read. You know, one where girl goes somewhere new, girl meets charming boy, charming boy likes her, they have some sort of fight, and then at the end things are hunky-dory by some bit of fateful magic that doesn't really exist. In some ways, that's what Falling in Love with English Boys is. But I don't want to trivialize it, because it's better than that. 


What saves this book from being just another teen chick-lit is debut author Jensen's humor, wit, and command of two very different writing styles. Although the story is primarily about Catherine Vernon, it is also the story of Katherine Percival, an 18-year-old girl living in 1815, and believe you me, the girls have WAY more in common than just their first name. 


My favorite aspect of this book is that it is told in diary form throughout. Jensen writes as both Catherine in present day and Katherine in 1815, and she handles the stylistic transitions brilliantly. She also does a fantastic job of bringing a girl from the oh-so Romantic-seeming era of the early-1800s, where everyone is supposedly demure and charming and Elizabeth Bennett-y, and made Katherine Percival seem like a real person who gets mad and is insecure and a little more boy-crazy than she probably should be. It was really refreshing, actually, and made me feel like less of a basket-case. (Ha!)


Now it's time to talk about the boy: William Percival. Will is British. Will is smart. Will is funny. Will is caring. Will will inherit a title. (!!!!!!) Will is sort of perfect. Okay, I'll stop with the short sentences. Overall, Will did the job as the leading man just fine. And though he had all the requisite characteristics and charms, I wanted more . . . I don't know, edge or passion or a motorcycle. Hell, I would have settled for a drum set. I like my boys a little rough around the edges, and I think Will could have used just a dash of that "you-know-I'm-bad-for-you-but-you-just-can't-say-no" salt. 


Anyway, the book is bouncy and light for the most part, but Jensen also throws in some plot curveballs that remind us just how random and unfair life can sometimes be--this is esepcially showcased in Catherine's friendship with Elizabeth, a gorgeous and politically-minded girl from a Muslim family and in Katherine's brother, Charles, who is among the troops who fought the Battle of Waterloo. Although both are minor characters, you learn to love them, and their stories bring a sense of reality and weight to the otherwise plucky story. 


Overall, Falling in Love with English Boys is surprisingly fun and extremely charming. It's a little reminiscent of Louise Rennison's Georgia Nicholson series, which I am still mourning the finale of, and made me laugh a lot. It's a quick, light, but worthwhile read if you're in the mood for a little British romance, both modern and Austen-ish. And let's be honest, girls (and boys!) like us are almost always in the mood for a little British romance.

Waiting on Wednesday: Beauty Queens

Title: Beauty Queens
Author: Libba Bray
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Pages: 400
Pub Date: May 24, 2011

From bestselling, Printz Award-winning author Libba Bray, the story of a plane of beauty pageant contestants that crashes on a desert island. 
Teen beauty queens. A "Lost"-like island. Mysteries and dangers. No access to email. And the spirit of fierce, feral competition that lives underground in girls, a savage brutality that can only be revealed by a journey into the heart of non-exfoliated darkness. Oh, the horror, the horror! Only funnier. With evening gowns. And a body count.--Goodreads


Just . . . read the description. I know you skipped over it.


 *waits*


Ready? 


HOLY COW THIS SOUNDS GOOD!! And that cover?! I am SO IN.


Bonus for y'all: I may have done one or two pageants back in the day. Here is a photo. Yes, I am holding a trophy. (I won a trophy!) 

I was never normal. Even back in high school when I was still pretending to be. 


Aaaaanyway. So there's my pick for this last Wednesday of my 23rd year. Treacherous islands and bitchy girls. Mwahahahaha. 

Open Call for Harry Potter Lovin' Guest Bloggers!

Howdy!

Next week I'm heading down to sunny, lovely, amazing Orlando, FL with ma mere to go to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter.

This means that I will be gallivanting and pretending to do magic instead of blogging.

But since there are so many of us who lovelovelove Harry Potter, I thought it might be fun to have a Harry Potter-themed week next week on this here blog and to have some lovely and talented guest bloggers blog about HP. Which means!. . .

I need some guest bloggers. Four to be exact.

So! If you would like to be one of them, leave me a comment or give me a shout on Twitter by replying to @bethanyelarson.

Top 10 Tuesday: Bookish Pet Peeves

This week's Top 10 Tuesday (hosted by the lovely ladies at The Broke and The Bookish) question concerns bookish pet peeves. At first, this baffled me--I was all like, "I love books, nothing about them ever bothers me." And then I realized that that is a humonstrous lie. The more I thought about it, the more pet peeves I realized I had. It's quite the list actually. So I've broken it up by category. And I've added some pictures to illustrate. And I use CAPSLOCK and itals a whole helluva lot. Because apparently I feel very, very strongly about the bookish pet peeves I didn't realize I had until a couple days ago...haha.

Alright, ladies and gents, heeeeeeere we go!


Story Elements


1. Historical Time Travel

2. "Creative" Names
I have no problem with "creative" names if there is a reason for the name to be creative--the mom is crazy, the dad is obsessed with Greek mythology, the character is named after some ancient relative with a ridiculous name, etc. But when a character is named Calypso or Indigo or Bunny for absolutely no reason, I just can't deal with it. I don't know why.

Covers

3. The Twilight-endorsed/ Twilight-centric covers
I know it's a marketing ploy, but it PISSES ME OFF. I think it literally makes my blood boil. I was actually in a bookstore not long ago, and a woman asked me if she should buy her teenaged niece Wuthering Heights or Pride and Prejudice, and she pointed at the books with the now-famous black, white, and red covers and the stupid "Edward & Bella's favorite book" graphic. I said "You should get her both books, and throw in Jane Eyre for good measure," and followed up my suggestion by begging her to buy an edition with a different cover. She did. I'm that good.

4. Endorsements
You know those blurbs that are sometimes on books that say "This is a world I'd love to live in!" or "A wonderful debut from a dazzling new talent!" and is credited to some famous author/reviewer? I hate those blurbs. Loathe them. I want to smash them with a hammer. I also hate them on movie posters. (Apparently I just hate endorsements.) At least my hate is steadfast.

In the Bookstore


5. Judgmental Booksellers
Yo, I'm buying books. I'm supporting publishing and your bookstore. DON'T YOU DARE pass judgment. (Unless you're the Judgmental Bookseller Ostrich. Then it's fine.)

6. Disorganization
I super like indie bookstores. And I actually like bookstores with a decent amount of clutter, you know the ones that reek of "crazy book/cat lady who only drinks tea"?--those are fun. But the ones where nothing is labeled and there are just stacks and stacks of random dusty books in random dusty piles and not even the proprietor of the establishment knows where anything is, make me CRAZY.

7. The Shelf-Blocker
You know that person who grabs seven books from a shelf and then STANDS there and flips through all of them, all the while blocking the shelf so that no one can get to it and acts like they can't see you/hear you coughing awkwardly? I DESPISE this person. I wish a pox upon their house when I see them.

At the Library 

8. Writing in books
 If I own a book, I will mark that bitch up. I'll highlight, underline, write in the margins, and flag pages. If I buy books as a gift, I write my own personal dedication on the title page. So, I am not AT ALL opposed to writing in books. But I AM opposed to writing in library books. Maybe this is hypocritical, but it's still true. The last thing I want when I check a book out from the library is someone's doodles or thoughts written in. (Unless, you know, they're good. Haha!) To be honest, there have been a couple times when I've decided to share my enthusiasm for a quote or passage or whatever with another Queens Library patron, but I write it on a sticky note and put it inside the book before I turn it in.

9. The Careless Alphabetizer
There are few things worse than asking a librarian/consulting the online catalog, being told by human/computer that the book is available to be checked out, happily bouncing over the shelf to get the coveted book, and then . . . Where THE F@$K is it?! And you look at the shelf above. The shelf below. You look three times. You walk farther down the aisle, knowing that it won't do any good. Then you go find a library worker, who is normally a volunteer, to ask if they know where it might be. And then they do what you just did. And, if they're nice, they go look in the "back room" for it. They normally don't find it. That leaves you, annoyed, and bookishly unsatisfied. Grr Argh.

10. Due Dates
Normally due dates don't bother me, but I'm currently suffering from the my-TBR-is-growing-and-my-library-books-are-due-but-I-haven't-read-them-yet fever. Due dates are no longer my friend.

So that's my listy-list! Feel free to share your bookish pet peeves in comments or on the Twitters!

Why I Hate Historical Time-Travel Books

In yesterday's review of Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly, I proclaimed my disdain for books that involve historical time travel. This outburst has elicited a bit of a response via the Twitters, and several people have asked me "Why, why, why in God's name why do you not like books about time travel?" [Just to be clear, that isn't an actual tweet I received. But if it were, that person would receive 1,000 gold stars.] Since it takes more than 140 characters to explain, I'ma do it here.

First of all, I want to make it very clear that I don't hate books about time travel. I hate books about historical time travel. The difference is that in historical time travel, the main character, typically from present day travels back in time through some sort of portal or dream or magic to a time period that he or she is studying/way into/has some sort of importance for them. (Sometimes it's a historical character who comes to modern times, but that is more rare.)

This sounds like a great idea, right? I mean, who hasn't daydreamed about seeing Classical Rome in its heyday or looking at Impressionist paintings in a French salon or going to a Bob Dylan concert in the '60s? It would be an amazing experience, one that we would never forget. But the difference here is that we know what happens after that day--we know how its all going to go down. And that knowledge, though great, is kryptonite for the historical time traveler (HTT).

You see, typically, the HTT and all of his (or her) modern sensibilities ends up wreaking havoc on the lives of the people in whatever century it is that he (or she) travels to, makes a complete and total ass out of himself (or herself), and then at the end realizes that he (or she) misses his (or her) life back in his (or her) own time period, but he's (or she's) learned something that he'll (or she'll) never forget. Huzzah.

Now, if that was all that happened, it wouldn't be so bad. But normally there are a couple narrative devices thrown in for funsies that just really aren't okay. Most notably, the love story in which a person from modern times falls in love with person from olden times and then there's a crisis--does modern person stay in olden time, or does olden person come to modern time, or do they just call it a day? No matter which solution the author chooses, it's never quite a "happy" ending--one of the characters has to give up quite literally everything they have ever known to be with the other person. Another problem that can arise in this sort of story is the "I ended up marrying my great great grandfather, which means that I'm my own great great grandmother" as exhibited in the classic American film Kate & Leopold. It's just creepy.

Another weird narrative device is the one where the HTT ends up helping invent something/solving a problem/finding the answers to something that he/she has been pondering or working on. This is especially true in mystery novels where the HTT is trying to solve a mystery, hits a dead end, travels back in time, and just so happens to run smack into the VERY PERSON that they need to run into to solve the mystery. This is just ridiculous. And if it ends up that the HTT used their modern knowledge to help invent some sort of great thing, it's kind of rude to history--it's basically saying "Hey, you, historical person. You weren't smart enough to figure this out. No, siree. A time traveler obviously helped you do this."

This actually happens in Revolution [Prepare for SPOILERS]--Andi meets the oh-so influential composer she's writing her thesis on, and he listens to her iPod and is really into the very musicians whose music he informed through the music that he has yet to write when he meets Andi, which basically means that she introduced him to the musicians that were inspired by him, but now he is inspired by both them and by music he has yet to write. Which means!, Andi is the person who is responsible for the piece of music that she considers to be so fantastic because she's the one who introduced him to the musicians who were inspired by the music he has yet to write. It's nonsensical! Okay, it's a little romantic. But mostly, it's nonsensical.

I'm sure that there are those of you out there who are thinking "All of this sounds cool. You're just no fun." And maybe that's the case. But I think the main reason why I hate historical time travel books is because I always come away from them really, really unsatisfied. Maybe it's because I know I won't ever be able to do it. Maybe it's because I feel weirdly protective of history and don't want it tampered with. Whatever the case, I seriously dislike historical time travel.

If you need some convincing of my position, just watch the BBC mini-series Lost in Austen. You'll understand afterward.

Review: Revolution

Title: Revolution
Author: Jennifer Donnelly
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Pages: 472
Pub Date: October 12, 2010
Format: Library book

BROOKLYN: Andi Alpers is on the edge. She’s angry at her father for leaving, angry at her mother for not being able to cope, and heartbroken by the loss of her younger brother, Truman. Rage and grief are destroying her. And she’s about to be expelled from Brooklyn Heights’ most prestigious private school when her father intervenes. Now Andi must accompany him to Paris for winter break. 
PARIS: Alexandrine Paradis lived over two centuries ago. She dreamed of making her mark on the Paris stage, but a fateful encounter with a doomed prince of France cast her in a tragic role she didn’t want—and couldn’t escape. 
Two girls, two centuries apart. One never knowing the other. But when Andi finds Alexandrine’s diary, she recognizes something in her words and is moved to the point of obsession. There’s comfort and distraction for Andi in the journal’s antique pages—until, on a midnight journey through the catacombs of Paris, Alexandrine’s words transcend paper and time, and the past becomes suddenly, terrifyingly present.--Goodreads


While reading Revolution, I was awestruck. Donnelly spins an intensely tragic, raw tale of two girls in two different times, but whose stories are the same. Both are hurt, angry, and desperate in a way that I hope to never know. Both want to act, want to make a mark, and want to go out with a bang. I couldn't get enough of it. I was racing through this book, praying my lunch breaks at work wouldn't end so that I didn't have to stop reading. But, of course, they would end.

So last night, I canceled my plans so I could go home and finish this book. (I'm not joking about that.) I read and read and read, and then, about 100 pages from the end, something happened. All of a sudden, Donnelly was using my LEAST FAVORITE narrative technique--the historical time travel.

I know what you're thinking--'But, Bethany, did you not read the summary of the book? It plainly states that "the past becomes suddenly, terrifyingly present."' Yeah, I got that, but I didn't think it was going to be literal. I mean, Andi is crawling around in the mothereffing Parisian catacombs while reading a diary from the French Revolution. That's pretty terrifyingly present if you ask me.

Anyway, after spending so much time and energy and emotion with Revolution, I found myself getting angry. The book had been so informed and smart  and tonally solid and heart-wrenchingly beautiful that I didn't think it could go wrong. But when I got to the part where Andi enters the catacombs and starts talking to the "hot goth guy," I found that a conversation I'd had with a co-worker was coming true--she asked me how I was liking this book and I said, "I love it. I'm a little obsessed with it. But I'm afraid it's going to go to a weird time-travely place, and I really, really don't want it to go there." And as I sat there, at 1:00 AM, devouring this book, I realized that that's EXACTLY where it was going.

I was pissed.

I called my boyfriend and RAILED against it. I cussed the book in English, French, and maybe Pig Latin. He said, "Wow, you must really like this book to be so mad about this. Just calm down and finish it." [Mr. Bethany is sort of great.]

So that's what I did. And as I kept reading, I realized that while Donnelly did use the hated historical time travel technique, she also did something different with it, something that left it open to interpretation. So I'm going to interpret it as NOT historical time travel, and that makes me a much, much happier Bethie.

Overall, this book is fantastic. It's beautifully crafted, extremely well-researched, and has a V for Vendetta vibe to it. So, if that's your thing, or if you're a historical fiction nerd and Francophile like me, then you will adore this book. But I'm warning you, this book is not for the faint of heart (or stomach)--Donnelly spares no disgusting detail when describing the conditions of the French Revolution and there are a couple places that were a little hard for me, the girl with a History major and French minor, to get through. But hopefully that won't stop you from RUSHING to get this book. And if you do, clear your calendar. You won't be able to put it down.